There’s an old riddle that asks this question: “What is it that belongs to you, but other people use it more than you do?” THE ANSWER: Your name.
Your name belongs to you, but you rarely use it except to tell others who you are. We like it when other people say our names, because our names are important to us. We like to have people know our name because when they don’t know our name, we can feel unnoticed and unimportant. But when people remember our names, we feel valued.
Even God’s name is important. In the “Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be… THY NAME.”
You know, the Lord’s prayer is one of the most beloved prayers in Scripture. People have memorized it, and recited it, for centuries. One boy who was memorizing the words of that prayer and was overheard saying: “Our Father who art in Heaven, how’d you know my name?” Everybody in the room chuckled and his mother was embarrassed. But noticing her embarrassment, the preacher smiled and said “Oh, Ma’am - don’t let that bother you. Your son was right: God DOES know his name.”
God knew that boy’s name, and God knows your name too. Which means you really matter to God. (PAUSE)
In Isaiah 43:1 we’re told: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you BY NAME, you are mine.”
In the Gospel of John Jesus said: The sheep hear (the shepherd’s) voice, and he calls his own sheep BY NAME and leads them out…. "I am the good shepherd. I KNOW MY OWN and my own know me..." John 10:3 & 14
God knows your name. In fact, He’s got it written it down. In Revelation we’re told that (when we’re saved) OUR NAMES WERE WRITTEN DOWN in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 20:15)
In fact, God not only knows your name, He knows everything else about you. He has an exhaustive knowledge of every aspect of your daily life and thoughts. Psalm 139:1-4: says "O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.”
God knows you! He knows your thoughts, and your location. In fact, even before you say something - God knows it. And even before you were born… God knew everything about you “(God) formed (your) inward parts; (He) knitted (you) together in (your) mother's womb." Psalm 139:13
We have a song that we sing in 1st service… that echoes that truth. And if you know it… sing it along with me:
“I have a Father; He calls me His own. He'll never leave me, no matter where I go; (Chorus) He knows my name, He knows my every thought. He sees each tear that falls, And He hears me when I call."
I like that song. He knows my name. He knows my every thought. He sees each tear that falls - And He hears ME when I call. You and I are THAT important to God. (PAUSE) One person put it this way: “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.” (Max Lucado)
(PAUSE) Now… not only is God the God who knows your name; He’s also the GOD who will ALWAYS be with YOU.
Psalm 139 says: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” Psalm 139:7-12
Anywhere you go… God’s gonna be there! You can’t go any place that God won’t be there for you. And that’s important, because He’ll never be far away. He’ll always be near when you need Him the most. That’s the promise God made us in Hebrews 13:5 - “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
ILLUS: I read about a 2-story house that caught on fire. The family was making its way out of the house when the smallest boy became terrified, and tore away from his mother. He ran back upstairs into one of the bedrooms, and suddenly, he appeared at a smoke filled window. The boy was crying hysterically, and his father shouted, “Jump, son! Jump! I’ll catch you.” The boy cried out “But daddy, I can’t see you” and the father called out “I know. But I can see you.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning)
Our God always sees you; He’s always near you; and He always knows what you need. So your God is the God who knows you, and the God who will always be with you - but He’s also the God… who created YOU.
“(God) You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.” Psalm 139:13-15
You are NOT some ordinary person. God formed you. He made you in secret. You were intricately woven & knit together in your mother’s womb. GOD DID ALL THAT! There’s no one else in the world like you. There never has been. There never will be.
And what David’s simple words were saying was this: You and I were valuable even in our mothers’ womb. We were fearfully and wonderfully made by God.
Now, I could have used this passage as a way to address the evils of abortion, and that would be legitimate - because Abortion is an EVIL practice. Because life begins at conception.
ILLUS: Medical authorities have determined that a person is "alive" if there is either a detectable heartbeat or brain-wave activity. With that in mind, it is an eye-opening moment for some to realize that unborn children have detectable heartbeats at 2 ½ weeks after conception, and detectable brain-wave activity at a little over 5 ½ weeks after conception. What is so shocking is that essentially 100 percent of all abortions occur after the seventh week of pregnancy. In other words, all abortions are done long after there are heartbeats and brain-wave activity. (Sanctity of Life, C. Swindoll, Word, 1990, p. 11-12.)
SO ABORTION IS AN EVIL PRACTICE, but that’s really not the focus of this passage. The focus of this passage is that: an unborn child is a special creation of God. The child inside a mother’s womb is shaped and formed by the hand of God.
ILLUS: Scientists recently found that when the man’s sperm connects with the woman’s egg in the womb, a burst of light occurs (we showed a graphic of it). That’s the moment of time when God creates life. And God carefully shapes and forms that infant until it becomes a marvel of His creative genius.
A google search of the phrase “The Wonder Of An Unborn Child” gave this observation: “The marvel of an unborn child lies in the astonishing, rapid, and complex development from a single cell into a fully formed human, showcasing intricate organ formation, brain growth, and the beginning of sensory experiences like hearing, moving (hiccupping, thumb-sucking), and responding to the mother's emotions. (It’s) a process often described as miraculous and a testament to the intricacies of life itself.” (AI search)
In other words, you and I were fearfully and wondrously made. Everything that you are today, started out in your mother’s womb. That’s when God created you.
So, let’s revue. Your God is the God who knows you, and the God who will always be with you, and the God who created YOU. God is invested in you. In fact, you are so important to God, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that you be cleansed of your sins and so that you could spend an eternity with Him in heaven.
AND, THAT’S ALL GREAT STUFF
But there’s something about this psalm that’s a little confusing. The Psalm goes to great lengths to say that God has searched us, and knows everything about us. That He’s always near us, and that He even created us at birth, and that we are important to Him.
But then David writes: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24
SEARCH ME? TRY ME? KNOW MY HEART? But I thought God knew everything about me?
Well… He does.
But in this set of verses, David is INVITING God to search his heart and know his thoughts. Why would David do that? Well, Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) tells us “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Left to my own devices, I’ll believe that I’m a pretty nice guy. I mean, after all - if God loves me as much as Ps. 139 implies, I must be WORTH it. I must DESERVE His love.
Wellllll… not so much.
In the book of Ephesians, Paul was writing to a church who’s acceptance by God was being questioned by Jewish believers who said (to be accepted by God) these Gentile believers needed to be circumcised to be saved. So Paul spent an entire 1st chapter of his letter telling them that: They were chosen by God to be holy and blameless (1:3); That God had lavished His love and grace upon them (1:7-8); They were sealed with Holy Spirit (1:13); And that Paul was always giving thanks to God for them (1:16)
THEY WERE WONDERFUL PEOPLE
But then in the next chapter, Paul tells them not to get to thinking they deserved God’s Love. Essentially, he tells them REMEMBER WHO YOU ONCE WERE: “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…” Ephesians 2:1-6
In other word: “You didn’t deserve God’s love and forgiveness, but He loved you anyway. He sent His only begotten son to die for you so that you might be saved. All He asks is that we believe/ repent/ confess/ be baptized/ and live for Him. And it’s all because God knows your name.
Someone once said something that I found it interesting. He noted that the devil knows your name, but he calls you by your sins. But God knows your sins… and calls you by your name. Satan knows your name… but he doesn’t like you, so he calls you by your sins and he reminds you of how you’ve failed. But while God knows your sins, He loves you so much that He calls you by your name. And He calls you by your name because that’s how valuable you are to Him.
INVITATION
